The second season of Netflix’s A Man on the Inside is a pleasant surprise. It is much like most of Michael Schur’s post–Parks and Recreation career. It shouldn’t be, considering that list includes the hilarious Andy Samberg vehicle Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the profoundly funny The Good Place. What helps is having a fresh perspective on a good story. This is much like the aforementioned cop comedy and that exploration of good versus evil. So when Schur and Netflix attempt to adapt the overrated Chilean documentary The Mole Agent, what exactly are they trying to say?
What Schur found with A Man on the Inside is a reliable and undervalued player in Ted Danson. Danson embodies the comedy’s underlying themes. While the first season was understandably heavy-handed in its depiction of aging, the series presented the value of older adults in a fresh light. Danson is a seasoned actor who excelled in dramatic roles in The Onion Field and Body Heat. He achieved superstardom in the definitive sitcom of the 1980s, Cheers. He is versatile and can be put in almost anything.
Danson even showed a darker side in one of the great villain turns in Schur’s The Good Place, home to one of television’s all-time best twists. However, in the second season of the Netflix series, Danson displays an incredible amount of warmth and empathy. Simply put, the show treats people the way they want to be treated. It also offers the audience absurdist comedy infused with genuine humanity.
In the first season, we saw Danson’s Charles Nieuwendyk, a widower, investigate a missing ruby necklace at the Pacific View Retirement Community. It is in the heart of San Francisco. Charles has now been brought on full-time by his boss, Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada), a no-nonsense gumshoe. She has warmed up to Charles’s naïve skill set. When we first see Charles this season, he has been hired by a woman to spy on her husband. Her husband is a manager at an auto parts store. He is cheating on his wife at a bar while claiming to be a surgeon.
Charles, defender of the weak, fighter of the self-righteous, is enjoying his new career after a successful run as an engineering professor. The bookish gray fox, however, is looking for more out of life. So he takes on a case involving a mysterious activist making waves at Wheeler College. It is his daughter Emily’s (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Mary Elizabeth Ellis) alma mater. There, the school president (New Girl’s Max Greenfield) hires Charles to go undercover as a visiting professor. He needs to uncover who is behind the attacks on the school’s most prominent benefactor (the great and funny Gary Cole). This benefactor is a man with a daughter twice his new wife’s age.
Wheeler’s concern is that the attacks will prompt the entitled tech tycoon to withdraw his multimillion-dollar donation to the school. There’s no shortage of suspects, including Mona (Danson’s wife, the wonderful Mary Steenburgen), a hippie, free-spirited music professor. She inspires Charles to loosen up, grab life by the lapels, and step outside his comfort zone. The question remains, can Charles do his job while requiring a zest for life?
A Man on the Inside does a wonderful job of introducing new characters. For instance, the esteemed David Strathairn plays a professor who loves to needle Charles endlessly. There are also hilarious guest spots from Jill Talley as an overworked provost, and Schur-series mainstay Jason Mantzoukas is up to his usual shenanigans, delivering side-splitting results. Then there are the interactions with Charles’s grandkids, notably the hilarious, deadpan Wyatt Yang, which showcase the series’s comic versatility.
The romance between Steenburgen and Danson’s characters is genuinely lovely at times. The writing is smart and mature, showing how, despite those once-dormant butterflies, grace and sensibility come with time. However, the series struggles to integrate certain characters, such as Stephanie Beatriz’s Didi. Her blatantly obvious attempts to hit on Julie are stretched into an oblivious running gag that feels incredibly forced. Unfortunately, Beartriz, an incredible comic talent, is underutilized here.
A Man on the Inside doesn’t fall for standard mystery clichés, redirecting the plot wonderfully by the final episode. While it’s not the biggest shocker or twist, it’s constructed so well that it keeps the story engaging. However, if anything, it’s Danson’s performance, continuing to find roles that truly utilize his talents, that keeps the show light, funny, and unexpectedly poignant. He brings a warmth and wit that elevate this comedy into something rich, which is rare on today’s streaming waves.
A Man on the Inside season 2 is now available to stream exclusively on Netflix.
Netflix's second season of A Man on the Inside is hilarious and heartfelt!
I am a film and television critic and a proud member of the Las Vegas Film Critic Society, Critics Choice Association, and a 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes/Tomato meter approved. However, I still put on my pants one leg at a time, and that’s when I often stumble over. When I’m not writing about movies, I patiently wait for the next Pearl Jam album and pass the time by scratching my wife’s back on Sunday afternoons while she watches endless reruns of California Dreams. I was proclaimed the smartest reviewer alive by actor Jason Isaacs, but I chose to ignore his obvious sarcasm. You can also find my work on InSession Film, Ready Steady Cut, Hidden Remote, Music City Drive-In, Nerd Alert, and Film Focus Online.